


the desire and pursuit of the whole

by flibbertygigget



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agender Aziraphale (Good Omens), Brief drug use, Eldritch Abomination (sort of), Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Historical Elements, Horror Elements, M/M, Mild Consent Issues, Minor Character Death, Other, Period-Typical Homophobia, Theology, warfare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Before the beginning, God split Her first Creations in two. It takes six thousand years, two apocalypses, many philosophical debates, and quite a lot of sex to put Them back together again.Written for the Good Omens Big Bang 2019
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Others, Crowley (Good Omens)/Others
Comments: 36
Kudos: 82
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. in the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Good Omens Big Bang 2019. All the art is by the fantastic [Litzibitz](https://twitter.com/ValkyriesArt?s=09). Beta read by [phlintandsteel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phlintandsteel/pseuds/phlintandsteel).

(Art by [Litzibitz](https://twitter.com/ValkyriesArt?s=09))

* * *

_When one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment… And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love._

_\- Plato,_ _Symposium_

Once upon a time it was a truth universally acknowledged that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This is not strictly true. Firstly, God certainly _designed_ the heavens and the earth, but She fobbed off the more tedious details of creation _ex nihilo_ on various lower-level Powers and Virtues. Secondly, the heavens and the earth were created far after the Beginning.

In the Beginning, the real Beginning, there was Nothing. Not the normal sort of nothing you’ll find on a moonless night with cloudy skies in a well-mown field in the middle of nowhere. No, this Nothing was more than that, because there was no Something to distract from the absolute Nothingness of it all. 

Except, of course, for God.

She was the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover, the Spring from which all Springs Spring. She didn’t know this at the time, of course, not in so many words. She knew Her being, but it was Her Creations that invented language as we understand it and thereafter began to crown Her. But for now, there were no names, no creations. She was very lonely for a very long time, or what would have been a very long time if Time had been invented yet.

And then something Happened. She began to Create.

Her first Creations were not made of matter. No, they were of spirit like Her, except that they were completely unlike Her. There were three types (the idea of sexes was still a long way off): one that looked like two of what we call men sewed up back to back, one similar that looked like two of what we call women, and one that looked like some combination of the two. This is all very imprecise, of course. Humans would have said that they were giants, with four arms and four legs and two faces, but some of them had fifteen arms and some of them had four faces and some of them were rings within rings covered in billions of eyes. Not to mention that they were not, well, physical, which meant that the way we would have perceived them and the way they truly were is pretty much apples and nebulae. 

For a long time (and this is about when Time was created) Her Creations remained balanced. They were Courage and Non-Courage, Action and Non-Action, Agreement and Argument. They were endlessly reconstructing, and yet they always kept their own essence. They contained multitudes, yet were one in themselves. They were Hers, and She loved them.

And, in a moment, that changed.

It began with the Creation that would soon be called Lucifer and Michael. They came to Her, asking to be separated. Not forever, they said. Only for a time, so they could have the experience - Michael because she wanted to experience Certainty, and Lucifer because he wanted to experience Action. God knew that, when She allowed this, it would set off a chain reaction that would destroy Her Creations as She knew them. She also knew that, unless She allowed this, they would never be content in themselves. And so, reluctantly, She split her one Creation into two.

And She screamed as She felt their agony.

They were Separated, alone within their selves for the first time in their existence. They had not been made for this, but now that they had experienced it they could hardly go back. Michael finally knew what it was to be Certain, to not go around in endless circles in their shared mind, and that was intoxicating. As for Lucifer, he was no longer fettered by their mind’s boundless shares of propriety, able at last to act on every impulse. They were rent in two, they were missing halves of themselves, and yet they were happy. And God, smiling through Her tears, was happy as well.

It could not be long, then, before the end of that first Creation. When they saw how happy Lucifer and Michael were, free of the immensity of being one in themselves, more and more of Her Creations wanted to be Separated as well. They were not named then, of course, but in time they chose their names. That was when they began to forget what they had been, _who_ they had been. They forgot what it was to be perfectly balanced, to understand one another on every level. They retreated into themselves, and God mourned for what might have been and what they had unwittingly set in motion.

It was not so much of a stretch, after all, from non-understanding to rejection.

They rejected what they had once been, the other half that would have made them whole if they could only have accepted themselves, and in doing so they twisted themselves into creatures that could harm each other. They had rejected their own Creation. God was forced to separate them permanently. She cast half of them, the more rebellious half, out of what was soon to be referred to as Heaven, and resigned Herself to never seeing Her Creations as they were meant to be again.

She mourned, and then She moved on. She had a new Creation to start, one that would bring about the completion of all things. She had a Plan.


	2. the tree of knowledge

_ I have poked into every dark recess, I have made assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss… All this I have done that I might distinguish between true and false. _

_ \- Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali,  _ _ Al-Mundiqh al-Dalal _

It was a cloudless, moonless night in Padua, A.D. 1610. The stars were brilliant in the sky, and Crowley wondered what clever little names the humans would use to refer to the ones he’d had a hand in making. Maybe if he drank enough he’d feel like he had at the beginning, weightless in the unmade cosmos, elements and compounds springing from his fingertips with barely a thought.

“ _ Perché non sei a letto, Antonio _ ?” Crowley startled, sloshing a bit of wine onto his lap. He shook himself from his melancholy thoughts and looked up at the human who was on the cusp of rewriting the heavens.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. Honestly, he didn’t think that he’d ever be able to sleep on the same sort of schedule as humans. He preferred not to wake for at least a month, and left to his own devices he’d be content to lie there for years. There wasn’t much of a point otherwise. 

“You still should come to bed,” Galileo said. 

“Or perhaps,” Crowley said, “I could act as your secretary. The stars are very beautiful tonight.” Galileo gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“An excellent idea,” he said. “I will set up the telescope, if you will fetch the papers.” Ten minutes later, Crowley and Galileo had set up to work in the garden. It was peaceful, this, taking down minute calculations and sketching circles in relation to each other. Galileo himself was beautifully in his element, peering with intense curiosity into the heavens that humans had only begun to fathom. He made Crowley want to stay and see every discovery they made first-hand. 

“Look here,  _ Antonio _ ,” Galileo said, touching his shoulder and gently guiding him to the eyepiece of the telescope. “One of the bodies has disappeared. Do you know what this means?” Crowley smiled as he looked into the magnified heavens.

“No idea,” he lied. “It’s strange, though.”

“I believe,” Galileo said, “that these strange bodies, which cannot be stars, are not planets either. If this vanished one reappears on the other side of Jupiter, we shall know for certain.”

“We shall know what for certain?” Crowley asked, though he already knew.

“That these bodies are, in truth, circling Jupiter as our moon circles the Earth,” Galileo said, cheeks flushed with the thrill of discovery. If Crowley closed his eyes, he could almost see the humans’ universe expanding.

* * *

Crawly had always liked Greece. The Athenian states in particular. When he wasn’t being sent to do a temptation down in Judea or over in Rome, he tended to hang around the schools and inns where the philosophers gathered, listening to their ideas of the order of things with a mixture of amusement and awe. Cratylus, Socrates, Plato - Crawly had listened to them all. Fucked about half of them, too. It didn’t matter whether what they said was close to the capital-T Truth or not. They were humans, and they were clever and curious and all the things Crawly wasn’t meant but decided to be anyways.

He liked the theatres a bit less, though he enjoyed some of the comedies. But blokes like Aristotle were saying good things about Aristophanes, so he’d decided to catch the playwright’s lecture and see whether he had anything worth seeing.

“Men have never understood the power of Love,” Aristophanes said to the men who had gathered to listen to him. “This is because human beings were not always as they are now. There used to be three sexes - one made of two men, one made of two women, and one made of half of each type, which is now preserved only in the word Androgynous. These beings possessed a capacity beyond human beings today, and so they decided to make an attack upon the gods. For this Zeus split them in two-”

Crawly jumped up and ran from the lecture. He didn’t care about the strange looks he was getting. The story, nonsensical as it was, had struck something inside him, and it was all he could do to keep from hurling up the wine he had drunk. He buried his head in his hands, trying to stop the phantom, half-remembered pain tearing through him.

He didn’t understand. He  _ couldn’t  _ understand. All he knew was that he had to get out of Greece before the weight of what had been drawn up overwhelmed him.

He made for Galilee the next day.

* * *

“Was all that business in Mecca your side’s, then?” Crowley asked Aziraphale as he watched him eat. Shrimp this time instead of oysters. At least Aziraphale seemed to be enjoying himself, or he had been before Crowley had decided to ask the question that had been burning in the back of his mind for at least a century. He didn’t like to come to Rome, but Hell had requested a temptation to be done and so he’d had to come up. After doing his thing, he’d needed more than  _ a  _ drink, especially once he’d realized that the ploy was a long game designed to weaken the whole empire. Rome wouldn’t last more than a hundred years or so, and the ends of things always made him feel depressed. 

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale said.

“Oh, come on. Islam? That fancy new religion that’s been catching on in Arabia?” Aziraphale still looked blank. “Don’t tell me you’ve been so out of the loop that you haven’t heard about Islam.”

“I’ve been busy,” Aziraphale said, flushing slightly. 

“Oh, yeah, very busy. Just a busy little bee, you are.” Crowley grinned at Aziraphale’s obvious discomfort. “Oh, come on, angel, just tell me. Why’d God send Gabriel down to Muhammad? Aren’t two religions worshipping Her enough?”

“Well, whatever the reason, I’m sure it serves the-”

“The Plan, the great bloody Plan, yes, I know. Lot of good that does you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re supposed to be helping humanity, right? Nudging them in the right direction with your angelic grace? Another bloody religion can’t be much good for that, can it?”

“If it means that more humans worship Her, of course it’s Good.”

“Tchk,” Crowley said incredulously. “It’s nothing but a mess. You’ve already got Christianity as the state religion of one of the most powerful empires in the world, and they’re not too happy about the Jewish people who aren’t in any mood to convert. Have you even been to Judea lately? It’s a bloody nightmare. And now there’s this new religion that’s already started an empire. What do you think’ll happen when the two of them knock up against each other, a respectful theological debate?”

“Well, hopefully-” Crowley hissed.

“There’s no ‘hopefully’ about it. This can only end in bloodshed, mark my words.”

“Surely even you can’t be  _ that _ pessimistic. Why, humans have managed all kinds of theological quibbles among themselves, and they got a sort of consensus in the end.”

“Are you talking about Nicaea? You call that a consensus?” Crowley gulped down the rest of his wine and slammed the cup on the table. “They haven’t consensused shit. They’re still arguing; they’ve just gotten more quiet about it. Because of fear. Because, like it or not, organized religion is absolutely fucked.” He stood from the table, swaying both from habit and from the unnatural amount of wine he’d managed to down. “Come down to Baghdad if you want to see real theologizing. There are some imams who think even Satan can be saved.”

Crowley loved Baghdad. More specifically, he loved the Baghdad House of Wisdom. Between the philosophy and the physics, he felt right at home, finding an intellectual cohort similar to the one he used to mingle with in Greece. If anything, Baghdad was better, breaking new ground in what felt like the blink of an eye to a several-millennia-old being. He expended several miracles of the not-so-demonic sort on making sure that the scholars would be even better funded, watching with excitement as they took the hints the world gave them and ran further than any humans had before.

Even their theological debates were more interesting than the Greeks or the Romans. Instead of laboring over fussy details like the Trinity, they seemed intent on soaring to ever-greater heights. Crowley couldn’t help but feel a bit contemptuous of the more esoteric Sufis (their mysticism felt too much like Aziraphale’s much-touted Ineffable Plan That We Must Not Question), but he fell in love with the Falsafahs and the Mu'tazilites, sometimes literally. They wanted to understand, really understand the way God worked, the meaning of literally everything. This was why Crowley had fallen and he  _ reveled _ in it, if only because understanding might,  _ might _ lead to an explanation of why this supposed Great Plan seemed so fucking awful in places.

According to some of them, understanding might lead to even a demon being Forgiven. Crowley didn’t know if he believed, but he  _ hoped. _

As the empire expanded, so did Crowley. He travelled to India, where the Hindu statues of their gods gave him the same aching feeling as when he had listened to Aristophanes. He travelled north to Coreba, where Jews and Muslims lived uneasily near the Christians of the Iberian peninsula and the caliph’s male harem was more or less public knowledge. It had been almost a thousand years since the whole Jesus thing had gone down, and Crowley was finally starting to get used to existing Anno Domini.

He was in one of the fancier tavernas when a human approached him. He looked up from his drink, surprised that the aura of “don’t-speak-to-me” he was purposefully emitting didn’t seem to be affecting the human at all, and then he straightened up. He would have to be a fool not to recognize the most important woman in this part of the world. Unlike most of the humans that surrounded him, Subh of Cordoba didn’t constrain herself to one gender of clothing. She wore trousers instead of a skirt and had cropped her hair short. More to the point, she was married to the caliph of the region, Al-Hakam, and was said to hold more sway over the court than even her husband.

“My queen,” Crowley said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“My husband is requesting you,” Subh said.

“And why is he doing that?” he asked.

“That is not for you to question,” she snapped. “You are to obey your Caliph.” Crowley quickly backpedaled.

“I didn’t mean to question the caliph,” he said. “I just meant that I was… surprised that my queen would be sent on such a task as fetching me.” This seemed to mollify her a little, and Crowley let out a sigh of relief. It would be embarrassing to have to explain to Down Below that he’d been discorperated by one of Subh’s rather bulky-looking guards.

“You are to follow me,” she said, not bothering to explain further. If Crowley had really wanted to, he could have gotten out of this whole thing with a flick of his wrist or a snap of his fingers, but he was bored. He supposed that fucking an equally bored caliph would be a decent way to spend the afternoon.

The great intellectuals and mediocre sex couldn’t go on forever, of course. Crowley watched as the power of the caliphates faded, first from the Mongol invasions, then from the fall of Baghdad, and then, finally, through the horrors of the Reconquista and the Crusades. Crowley watched and mourned and wondered why Aziraphale wasn’t there to mourn beside him. It was all well and good for him, a demon, to take a side in this theo-political mess, but it seemed, well,  _ unseemly _ for Heaven to float incorruptibly above it all as their creations tore each other to bits.

* * *

“He mocks me!” Crowley barely looked up from his cup as Galileo slammed  _ Libra astronomica ac philosophica _ on the table in front of him. “Lotario Sigensano my ass! It’s Grassi again, Orazio Grassi who continues to plague me!”

“What’s he done this time?” Crowley said.

“Mocked me and my theories once again! He uses my ideas, my observations, and then has the audacity to produce this - this travesty of a treatise! It’s more suited to a superstitious country priest than a so-called man of science.”

“It’s as bad as all that, is it,” Crowley said. “Are you going to write against him again?”

“Oh, I’ll do more than that,” Galileo fumed. Crowley leaned back, not allowing his concern to show through but concerned nonetheless. “I’ll completely ruin him. By the time I’m done, no one will bother reading Grassi’s  _ rot _ except to mock him and all those who follow him.” 

“Don’t go too hard on him,” Crowley warned. “You don’t want to make enemies.”

“Enemies? Pope Urban loves me. With him on my side, what enemies do I need to fear? The Jesuits?” He snorted. “They’re fools, slaves to tradition and dogma.”

“You know I agree with you on every count, but you should still be careful. You can always destroy his science without completely destroying his ego.” Galileo gave him a wolfish, wrathful grin, the kind that Crowley was supposed to encourage and that instead made him very nervous.

“But  _ Antonio _ , destroying his ego is so much more  _ fun _ .”

* * *

Crowley was exhausted by the time he got back to Bletchley Park. Officially, he had been sowing temptation in Vichy France - it was the sort of thing that Hell felt would throw the tenuous alliances that surrounded Paris into chaos. Unofficially, Crowley had been bouncing - well, flying really - between France, Poland, and Germany all week, trying desperately to smooth the infant paths of spy networks and communications that could maybe,  _ maybe _ mitigate some of the horror the demon knew was already underway. 

It wasn’t enough. His ration of temptation and Aziraphale’s blessings had both been used until they were bone-dry, and still it wasn’t nearly enough. But now he was supposed to go back to England - something about the Blitz, not that he really needed to do any work there. The bombs would fall whether he directed them or not, and he was confident that Aziraphale would be doing what he could from Soho.

He had been tempted to meet with Aziraphale. Not because he was worried about him (the angel had a rather appealing selfish streak that meant he, or at least his books, wouldn’t be destroyed by something so simple as a human war), but because he desperately wanted to get drunk with the only being on Earth who could possibly understand what this war meant and how he was feeling. 

Crowley felt impotent. In the face of everything - the rising tide of war, the concentration camps, the eagle eyes of Hell, the sheer  _ exhaustion  _ that grounded him - what use was a demon? But he couldn’t risk going to Aziraphale immediately - that was too obvious, that would tip off Heaven or Hell. So instead he decided to go to his latest human lover and simply  _ breath _ .

It really was lucky that Alan had given him the key.

Crowley slipped into the flat as quietly as he could, but he needn’t have bothered. Geniuses had always kept odd hours in his experience, and Alan was no different, working ceaselessly on his blueprints and calculations under the still-strange electric lamplight. Crowley tried to keep up with technological advancements, and he certainly did better than Aziraphale, but he had to admit that when it came to electricity he was a bit lost. Oh, he could  _ work _ it easily enough, but he didn’t  _ understand  _ it at all.

“Busy night, love?” he said. Alan straightened up from his work, allowing Crowley to wrap his arms around him from behind and bury his nose in Alan’s hair. A glance at Alan’s work told Crowley that it was beyond what he could parse - there was electricity and wheels and an unfamiliar sort of maths. He hadn’t really thought about maths in depth since Baghdad.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Alan said. “I thought I might as well make use of my time.”

“Mlurgh,” Crowley mumbled into Alan’s hair.

“Did you just get back?”

“Yeah, I was… Well, classified.” Alan began rubbing up and down Crowley’s arm, and Crowley just held on harder. “Drove up here from London. Bloody mess down there. Had to see you.”

“That had to be hell on your petrol rations.” The Bentley doesn’t need petrol, especially not at a time like this, but Crowley knows better than to correct the misconception. Even Alan’s teasing sounds tired and stressed now, the war throwing a pall over everything, and the human didn’t even know all the details of what was happening. 

“If they need me so badly, they can get me there themselves,” Crowley said. “Don’t want to go back to the Continent for a while, love. Want to stay here with you.” He’ll be going back, of course. How could he not? Once he gets his strength back, once he’s allowed a few more temptations and Aziraphale lets him borrow a few more blessings, once he drinks enough to forget what he’s already seen and prepare for whatever the fuck comes next… But for the time being, Alan was safe and warm, full of a different, less horrible type of knowledge than the things Crowley’s desperate fight has shown him.

Sometimes Crowley hated how much he had to  _ know _ . Sometimes he wished he could just bugger off and let someone else deal with it all.

“I wish I could know where you are, what you do,” Alan said softly. His hand was slowly stroking its way over Crowley’s shoulder and up his neck. Firm fingers dug into Crowley’s hair, and the demon couldn’t hold back a moan of contentment. “I mean, I don’t even know what agency you belong to. MI6? MI7?”

“You know I can’t tell you.” Not least of all because, as far as the British government was concerned, Anthony J. Crowley wasn’t an agent but a freelance apparition who tended to pop up at the precise moment when you desperately needed him.

“Just a hint?” Crowley chuckled and pressed a kiss to Alan’s forehead. Alan patted the back of Crowley’s neck absentmindedly, making it obvious that his wheedling had been mostly in jest. “You should go to bed.”

“Come with me,” Crowley said. 

“I need to finish up-”

“Please? For me?” Alan sighed, looking longingly at the papers strewn across his desk, but Crowley wasn’t stupid. He knew that if he didn’t take charge now, Alan could very well not go to sleep at all and be subjected to a very unpleasant time at work the next day. Sometimes he wondered whether the human condition wasn’t Original Sin in the Catholic doctrinal sense but an unfortunate need to eat, sleep, and breath that, as far as Crowley knew, wasn’t shared by any other sapient Creation. For a moment Crowley thought that Alan would actually deny him, but then the lines on his lover’s brow softened and he got up from his chair, stretching and cracking his joints.

“Oh, alright,” Alan said, tone annoyed but eyes soft and worried. “But just until you fall asleep.” Crowley kissed the corner of his mouth in thanks, and nothing could hide the human’s gentle smile. They both stripped down to their underclothes, lying down on the narrow boardinghouse bed in a tangle of lanky limbs. Crowley wriggled against Alan, relishing the heat of a fully corporal being after so long spent high in the cold air. 

“There,” he said when they were shoved so close together that they might as well have shared one body. Alan huffed out a laugh.

“How do you even sleep when you’re not with me?” he teased. 

“I don’t,” Crowley said softly. Alan’s arms tightened around him, even though there was no way he could know how literal the demon’s words were. Crowley closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to  _ sleep _ , but even with Alan’s arms around him he couldn’t calm his mind, so overtaxed with horrors that he knew he was inviting nightmares.

“Anthony?” Alan said, somehow sensing his anxiety. “Are you alright,  _ really _ alright?” Crowley was almost able to cut off the low, gasping sob that bubbled up in his throat. Alan interlaced their hands and squeezed. “Darling?”

“I’ll be fine,” Crowley said, voice thick. “Just…”  _ Hold me, _ he wanted to say,  _ hold me and never let me go back there, never again. _ “Just tell me about what you’re working on.” From the hand that began to slowly card through his hair, it seemed that Alan had gotten the intended message nonetheless.

“What we’re trying to make is essentially a larger, more sophisticated form of the Polish bomba,” he began in a low, soothing voice. “The Germans patched up Enigma, so the bomba isn’t capable of decrypting it anymore. Right now we’re trying a version is essentially thirty-six interconnected Enigma machines. When we intercept a message from the Germans that has a predictable crib word - a weather report for example - we should be able to set it so that the bombe can crack the entire daily code from that one word or phrase…” 

Crowley’s mind settled under the gentle waves of sound and knowledge. He didn’t entirely understand what Alan was talking about, of course, but maybe that was alright. The age of Renaissance Men was over, replaced by humans who specialized in chemistry and biology and, in Alan’s case, maths. Crowley didn’t need to understand the answers to be comforted by the fact that the knowledge was out there, able to be grasped and not subject to the whims of some Ineffable Plan.

The next morning Crowley would be woken by heated kisses that turned into morning sex. The next morning Alan would go to his job where no one could know he had a male lover and Crowley would begin planning his next series of infernal interventions. In a week he would be in London again, mourning the destruction and getting horribly drunk with Aziraphale. 

(“Does Heaven even know what the fuck Her Plan is? Or is your side just as blind as the rest of us?” he slurred out in Aziraphale’s back room. “The way I see it - The way I see it is we’d better fucking hope that She’s abandoned Earth like she abandoned Hell. Because if She didn’t, if this is all part of the Almighty’s bloody Plan, if She could have stopped it and  _ chose not to _ , then we’ve all been worshipping a fucking monster.”

It was a sign of the times that the angel didn’t even try to offer an explanation.)

In the years and decades to follow, what could pass for his heart would break a thousand times over, but for one blessed moment in time he felt complete.

* * *

Crowley stirred, confused by the lack of a warm, human body beside him. He opened his eyes and craned his neck, subtly opening his mouth to taste the air with his tongue.

“No, go back to sleep,  _ Antonio _ ,” the quiet, familiar voice of his lover said.

“What are you doing?” Crowley asked.

“I am attempting a sketch,” Leonardo said. “Now hush. I want to finish before the light changes.”

“What are you sketching?”

“You know very well  _ who  _ I am sketching,” Leonardo said, chuckling slightly, “and I will not indulge your vanity by telling you of the beauty that inspires me.” Crowley grinned, shimmying his hips beneath the blanket.

“You’re a sap.”

“I’m an artist,” Leonardo said, “and you, my dear, are my Euterpe.”

“Surely I at least count as Ourania,” Crowley teased.

“Ah, yes, how could I forget? You not only sing like a bird, but you fly like one as well.”

“Perhaps I  _ should _ shut up,” Crowley said. “After all, I would not want to fall at the hands of my Daedalus.”

“My hands are steady and sure. They will catch you.”

“Capture me, you mean.”

“Only in red chalk,  _ mio Antonio _ . And when I am done with my study I will release you.”

“And if I do not want to be released?” Leonardo set aside his notebook and chalk.

“We have spoken too long. I’ve missed the light.”

“What a shame. It seems I will have to stay another night.” That got a smile out of Leonardo. “You know, sometimes I wonder what it will take for you to take me up on my offer.”

“To keep you? I see no need to. You are like the moon. Your time with me might grow and diminish, I may spend some small time without you there, but you will always come back at night.”

“And some days,” Crowley said. “I’m not  _ just _ here for sex, you know.” It was perhaps bad form for a demon to admit something like that, but Crowley had always been a bit of a rubbish demon. 

“Yes,” Leonardo agreed, “you also wish to steal my ideas.”

“It’s a good thing I’m so pretty, then,” Crowley said. Leonardo hummed as he joined him on the bed, fitting himself between Crowley’s legs with an easy familiarity.

“Perhaps not such a good thing for you,  _ mio Antonio _ ,” he said. “I am quite possessive of my ideas, you know.”

“I’m an idea, then?” Crowley said, hooking his legs around Leonardo’s waist and rolling his hips. “A fantasy?”

“No,” Leonardo said. He began kissing his way down Crowley’s neck, and the demon gasped as the artist’s teeth caught on the sensitive skin near where his jugular ought to have been if he was a human. “You are something much more real.” Leonardo began to grind against him in earnest, both their pricks trapped between them in almost too much touch and friction. Crowley’s fists twisted in the bedsheets, grappling for something to tether him to Earth before he discorporated. Leonardo’s breath was heavy on his skin, only occasionally allowing enough air into his lungs to suck deep, wet bruises onto Crowley’s clavicle. 

“Does it - make it easier?” Crowley gasped out. “Knowing - Knowing anatomy?” Leonardo met his gaze, pupils blown halfway to Hell.

“What?”

“K-Knowledge. You know - Where skin is - Where it feels good.” Crowley was quickly becoming less coherent. “And then those - clever fingers you’ve got - artist’s hands. D’you think-” Leonardo shut him up with a hard, deep kiss and an almost brutal twist of his hips. Crowley arched his back, and faintly he could feel both their seed painting their stomachs, molding the spaces between them from air to liquid pleasure. Leonardo half-collapsed onto him, and Crowley’s legs uncurled into a less-than-gainly heap.

“Both,” Leonardo gasped out when he got his breath back. “It’s both,  _ il mio uccellino _ .”

“Hrrgh?” Crowley said, having already forgotten his rather muddled question.

“The middle space, you know, between science and aesthetic - that’s where the true Thing lies. It’s like - It’s like Plato.  _ Technê _ is craft, it’s defined by its goal, like creating a telescope or a flying machine. But  _ epistêmê _ is Truth, it’s Knowledge, it’s Art in its truest form. Fuller, but not separate.” He kissed Crowley languidly, no longer starving, as though they had all the time in Creation. “It’s the melding of those two that sheds light on the world. Science on the physical, and art on the spiritual. You need to love and understand both to truly know what is meant by Renaissance.” Leonardo kissed Crowley again, tenderly this time. It made the wound in Crowley’s being where Her love had been torn away ache.

“You’re too pretentious, love,” Crowley gasped out, trying for sarcastic and ending up somewhere near desperate. He could feel the artist’s smile on his neck.

“You are  _ il cuore del mio cuore, l'anima della mia anima _ ,” Leonardo said. “ _ You _ are my Renaissance,  _ Antonio _ .” Crowley swallowed thickly.

“How about that helicopter, then?” he said, abruptly changing the subject. From the gentle, scorching look Leonardo gave him, he hadn’t fooled the human a bit.

* * *

"...We order that by a public edict the book of  _ Dialogues of Galileo Galilei _ be prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office during Our will and pleasure; and as a salutary penance We enjoin on thee that for the space of three years thou shalt recite once a week the Seven Penitential Psalms... And thus We say, pronounce, declare, order, condemn, and reserve in this and in any other better way and form which by right We can and ought.  _ Ita pronunciamus nos Cardinalis infrascripti. _ ”

Crowley wanted to close his eyes. The Cardinals’ pronouncement was hardly sudden, the culmination of decades of discussions and arguments, but it still felt as though it was snapping history in two. But, no, he had to keep his eyes open. He had to watch as Galileo, looking very old and tired, stood with a bowed head and spoke the words that would make their ideas as good as reality.

“I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged 70 years… swear that I have always believed, I believe now, and with God's help I will in future believe all which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach, and teach.” Crowley was used to Galileo spitting venom, a dangerous storm that capsized all his opponents. This Galileo, however, was different, diminished, and Crowley knew exactly why.

“But… I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth is not the centre of the same, and that it does move.” Heresy. It was fucking ridiculous. Why would She have given the humans reason if it wasn’t so they could find out the truth? Why would She make all the signs point towards a heliocentric system if it was not so?

(Later, when he found out about the supposed dinosaurs that he  _ knew _ had never existed, Crowley would curse Her again and again. To mock humans after giving them curiosity and reason, after making them desire to  _ understand _ Her and Her Creation, was more cruel than he’d thought Her capable of, and Crowley had  _ many _ thoughts on her cruelty.)

“Nevertheless, wishing to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me,” Galileo’s voice broke for the first time, and Crowley flinched, “I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion.”

“Almost done,” Crowley muttered, as though he could somehow lend the old man the strength he needed to continue.

“I also swear and promise to adopt and observe entirely all the penances which have been or may be by this Holy Office imposed on me,” Galileo said, sounding as though the last bit of hope had been wrung out of him. “And if I contravene any of these said promises, protests, or oaths, (which God forbid!) I submit myself to all the pains and penalties which by the Sacred Canons and other Decrees general and particular are against such offenders imposed and promulgated. So help me God and the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands.”

Galileo’s hands were trembling. A few pieces of the puzzle of existence that didn’t line up with a dusty tome, and a genius was forced to swear his life, his freedom, his very  _ thoughts _ away. Crowley slipped out of the Convent della Minerva, reflecting on the irony of knowledge being repressed in a house of the Roman goddess of wisdom.

(“At least it’s better than Falling,” he slurred at Aziraphale late that night, ignoring the angel’s pitying look. “If there’s one mercy She gave humans, it’s that  _ they _ can’t Fall for asking the wrong questions, not straight out.”)

(Years later, he made a sound that was definitely nowhere near a sob when he heard his old friend called “ _ magnifico _ ” instead of “ _ eretico _ .”) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcript of Galileo's trial, which I used part of in the last scene, can be found [here](https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1630galileo.asp).


	3. there is a season

(Art by [Litzibitz](https://twitter.com/ValkyriesArt?s=09))

* * *

_ Once I could only predict what kind of sunrise it would be. Then I began to pray for the kind of dawn into which I wanted to wake. In detail, you know. Colors. Moods. Shapes. Shades of stillness or motion. It was something to look forward to… When I still prayed - and that was a while ago. Because I began to dispense with prayers. I took charge. I began to make dawns to order. _

_ \- Wole Soyinka,  _ _ The Beatification of Area Boy _

An angel and a demon were eating at the Zanzibar. The demon in question had been tempted by the truly excellent wine that could be found in the French Riviera, as well as the delicious scent of lust that wafted through the air like expensive perfume. The angel had only heard that they served the best escargot in Cannes, and he was feeling rather uncomfortable with the obviously sinful shenanigans that were taking place around him.

“All I’m saying, angel,” the demon said, already well into his cups, “is that you really need to get out more. I mean,  _ anybody _ could have told you that the Zanzibar was a club for-”

“Oh, hush,” said the angel. “I’m hardly bothered by  _ that _ , as you well know. It’s the humans who are the problem. All those carnal feelings.” The demon snorted.

“Come off it,” Crowley said. “You have to have  _ some _ experience. You belong to half the queer clubs in London. You practically  _ invented _ Molly Houses.”

“Just because I enjoy discussions with like-minded men doesn’t mean I’ve Fallen,” Aziriphale said.

“Oh, they’re  _ like-minded _ , are they?” Crowley said slyly. “Besides, who said anything about being Fallen?”

“I did,” Aziraphale said, almost on the verge of sounding  _ snappish _ . Crowley grinned. “Oh, you know what I mean. There’s a world of difference between a - a pleasant meal at a discreet gentleman’s club and, well,  _ this _ .”

“But I thought this was a pleasant meal, angel,” the demon pouted. The angel in question just rolled his eyes. “Anyways, it’s hardly  _ sinful _ . Even you must be able to sense it.”

“I beg your pardon?” Crowley flicked out his tongue, tasting the air.

“Sure there’s lust here, and plenty of it.  _ That’s  _ what makes it to my taste. But look over there.” He nodded at two men who were leaning close to each other over a table, hands firmly intertwined. “There’s a difference between lust and love.”

“You can’t feel love,” Aziraphale said, but he was already reaching out, probing at the halo of pure light that surrounded the men. It was beautiful, their love, like stained glass or a nebula. Across from him, Crowley gave a pained hiss.

“You’re slipping again, angel,” he said. Aziraphale yanked back his angelic essence, horrified.

“My dear boy, I’m terribly sorry.” Crowley dismissed the apology with a flick of his wrist, but that didn’t make Aziraphale feel any less guilty. It was all well and good for Gabriel or Sandelphon to exude Grace in quantities damaging to all but angels, but after almost six millennia among non-ethereal beings he should know better, especially around the extraordinarily vulnerable Crowley. “Really, I am very-”

“Drop it,” Crowley snapped. “Besides, I can sense lust, same as any sin, and,” he nodded at the men they had been talking about before, and Aziraphale could recognize a desperate subject change when he saw one, “they don’t have it. And if two humans looking at each other like that  _ aren’t  _ sinning,  _ ergo _ they must be loving. Loving as in ‘in love,’ and also loving as in-”

“Yes, yes, I see your point,” Aziraphale said. He glanced back over at the two men, and Crowley had to hide his smirk in his wine glass. “Still, all these… human urges - I mean, they seem rather complicated. Far more complicated than they need to be.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Crowley said. “Silly humans with their silly little rules. The way I see it - and I  _ would _ know - there’s only one difference between lust and love. One is a human having sex with an object, while the other is having sex with a person.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my dear.” Crowley’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses at Aziraphale’s condescending tone. “Love is something far deeper and greater than that.” Crowley shrugged.

“Believe what you want,” he said. “Me, I agree with the Hasidics. Lust may be a sin, but love is  _ tikkun olam _ . Something’s broken, angel, something from before the beginning, and love might be the only way to fix it. There’s a reason why the desire and pursuit of the whole is considered by some to be the greatest  _ mitzvah _ .”

“Love makes things whole,” Aziraphale muttered, looking down at the remains of his meal. He thought of heaven, and of God, and of death. He thought of the way things were before the end of Eden. “Now there’s a tempting thought.”


	4. the beauty of the earth

(Art by [Litzibitz](https://twitter.com/ValkyriesArt?s=09))

* * *

_ It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still love it. _

_ \- Oscar Wilde,  _ _ An Ideal Husband _

It was inevitable that a man (or, in this case, a man-shaped ethereal being) who spent a great deal of his time in the discreet gentlemen’s clubs of London would eventually come into contact with the famous, infamous Oscar Wilde. Wilde’s appearance, in fact, was a sign that the club in question was about to become a great deal less discreet, and that any man who was both obscure enough to be endangered and known enough to be interesting ought to quietly evacuate the premises until Wilde kindly buggered off to somewhere else.

Aziraphale (or, as he was known in these clubs, Mr. Arthur Z. Fell, bookseller, alias Angelique when the situation and the company called for it) was one of those lucky enough to be of absolutely no interest to the “journalists” that followed Oscar Wilde like carnivorous ducklings. This meant that, when Wilde decided to take his celebration of the success of his latest effort to the public room at the Hundred Guineas Club, Aziraphale had a front-row seat.

Though it might be said that the angel had never particularly wanted a front-row seat. In fact, Aziraphale would have been quite content to continue examining the Darby Bible without the excitement that inevitably followed anyone foolish enough to enter Pratt’s with an entourage. This translation, meant to be the most  _ plain-spoken _ of Bibles, revealed several quirks in this new generation of humans and their understanding of Her, not to mention that it was a great deal closer to the original sources than King James’ version. 

Not that any of sources were particularly accurate to the Truth that Aziraphale had experienced. If he had expressed  _ that _ observation to Crowley, he would have undoubtedly had something to say about God’s lack of clarification. Aziraphale didn’t have enough of the heretic in him to construct the demon’s arguments, but he could feel their potential there. Perhaps, after he was finished with the book, he ought to invite Crowley over for a nightcap and a round of theological… debate. Their discussions were sometimes disturbing, but Aziraphale always came away from them feeling as though he had gained some new insight, grasped something a little more beautiful.

“You know, you struck me as something of a traditionalist,” a voice said. Aziraphale looked up from his book to see Oscar Wilde himself, complete with a satin cape and silver-topped cane. “But if you’re reading that rot, you must fancy yourself a rebel.” Wilde, Aziraphale reflected, had the same air of foppish nonchalance as Crowley. The two of them would have either got on like a house on fire or incinerated each other through pure drama.

“You’re one to talk about rebellion,” said Aziraphale stiffly, “seeing as you were  _ supposed _ to restrict yourself to the public rooms.”

“Not a rebel but a critic then. What magazine will carry your ravaging?”

“I’m not a critic either. And, besides, I think it’s rather clever.” This may have been overstating Aziraphale’s enthusiasm for the translation, but he was ready to do whatever it took to irritate Wilde into leaving.

“If you think that, you truly aren’t a critic,” Wilde said. “What Darby’s managed to do is take something beautiful and make it common.”

“Well, that was the point, was it not? Common language for the common people.”

“Art,” said Wilde, “is never common. Or, at least, it ought not be.”

“That is quite the elitist stance to take.”

“On the contrary, I  _ revere _ equality. But it is always better to elevate the proletariat than to crush the spirit of the bouguasis.”

“I always thought the point was to eliminate the idea of  _ elevation _ altogether.”

“In government maybe. In economics maybe. But art is something which by its very nature requires elevation.”

“So you would rather have something beautiful and untrue, like the King James Bible, than something common and truthful?”

“There is nothing True that is not also Beautiful, and nothing Beautiful can be untrue. Beauty is the ultimate form of Truth.”

“And here, I am afraid, I must disagree with you most vehemently, Mr. Wilde,” Aziraphale said, “for men often tell themselves pretty lies for the sake of their own comfort. Did you not prove that very point in your latest work? Dorian Gray may have looked beautiful, but the truth was contained in all its ugliness on his picture.” Wilde grinned.

“I see you are a fan, Mr…” Aziraphale sighed. He could hardly refuse this acquaintance now, and, besides, he had begun to enjoy their little debate.

“Fell. Arthur Z. Fell.”

“Well met, Mr. Fell,” Wilde said, shaking his hand, “though I must admit that I am baffled as to how you could come to such a ridiculous conclusion from reading my little book.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Wilde,” Aziraphale said. “Your work only confirms what I have observed in my own experience.”

“You must have been given a damned wretched lot, then,” Wilde said, “for I have seen nothing in my own life that points to Truth and Beauty as being anything other than one and the same.” There was an underlying curiosity in his voice, an open invitation for Aziraphale to both confide in him and prove him wrong. Aziraphale tapped his leg, wondering how much he wanted to reveal to a man like Wilde and how he could even begin to do things justice.

“There is no beauty in war,” he said at last. Wilde’s demeanor turned immediately serious, in a carefully studied, ill-fitting sort of way.

“I - I’m terribly sorry,” he said, his voice for the first time losing its dancing, subtly refined edge. 

This man had practiced being a person as much as Aziraphale had, the angel realized with an unexpected rush of affection. It wasn’t fair to say that it was all a mask - one did not present oneself as so obviously flamboyant if there wasn’t already some grain of it in their personality - but Wilde had not sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus (or been created before the Beginning by God). There were rays of reality cutting through the cracks in the character he’d chosen to play.

“Don’t be,” Aziraphale murmured. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Was it…” Wilde hesitated. Another uncharacteristic crack. “Was it  _ quite _ awful?” Aziraphale closed his eyes, fighting against the way something inside his corporation twisted painfully. 

Words seemed fragile as eggshells in the face of the immensity of fighting one half of the host, of casting away those who ought to have been in full union with you. And that was before taking into account the blood, the blessed blades and furious hellfire, the screams as angels and demons alike were cleaved from existence. Aziraphale had seen hundreds of human conflicts, and none of them had given birth to a way of describing what he had witnessed - no, what he had _participated_ _in_. 

And Wilde stood there, asking Aziraphale to give him the precise degree and measure of the awfulness of it all. If the man had not been a human, Aziraphale would have felt himself fully in the right to attack him right then and there. As it was, he only had his tongue to express what his  _ self _ was  _ screaming _ .

“It was worse than Hell,” he said. He didn’t need what Crowley had told him about the place to be certain of  _ that _ . “There have been poets that have tried, but… there was nothing beautiful about the war, nothing glorious. It was - It was a  _ desecration  _ of the way things were meant to have been.” Aziraphale flinched when Wilde put a hand over his, but when the man made to pull away he took the hand and squeezed. “I’m terribly sorry, my dear boy. I’m afraid I’ve become rather…”

“No,” Wilde said, rubbing his thumb over Aziraphale’s knuckles. “I shouldn’t have pried. I’m as convinced as ever that Beauty is comprised of only Truth, but perhaps I might concede that Truth contains more than Beauty.”

* * *

There had only been one time he’d truly been tempted before Oscar Wilde, before that afternoon in the Zanzibar even. Though he was mostly left to his own devices, Heaven ordered him to conduct specific miracles on occasion. It was one such occasion that led him to New York in the tumultuous summer of 1860.

He knew that both the angels of Heaven and Crowley would have been surprised if they’d known that he’d chosen rooms in the decidedly working-class Brooklyn as opposed to the more well-off neighborhoods of upper Manhattan. Heaven because of their distaste for anything that was  _ too _ human, and Crowley because the demon only knew him as a Londoner who went to his gentlemen’s club and dined at the Ritz. And Crowley wasn’t wrong, not really, but Brooklyn had something that enticed Aziraphale. Beneath the grime of the factories and the shipyards was a community of writers and poets who had fascinated Aziraphale for years, and he was determined to make their acquaintance while he was in New York on business.

Normally, Aziraphale would gain access to those whose art enticed him through his carefully curated contacts. Antique book and art dealers, reviewers for the top London literary magazines, a number of higher-ups in the publishing houses. If they did not have the ability to give him an in, they would almost certainly know the right person who could. But this was not London, was not even the Continent, and Aziraphale found himself rebuilding his social circle practically from scratch for the first time since the mid-1700s. So much had changed since the Regency era that he didn’t know quite how to begin.

He should have guessed that his potential invitation into the literary society of Brooklyn would come in a bookshop. Bowers & Coleman was a small shop specializing in the sort of new releases that would not be sold anywhere else, books that found themselves falling in the cracks between popular and literary tastes. Aziraphale had been browsing, wondering whether he ought to buy a copy of  _ Max Havelaar _ in Dutch while the first edition printing was still easy to find or wait for the book to be translated into English, when a broad, brawny man with a long beard walked through the door. Aziraphale hastily placed the book back on the shelf, for he instantly recognized the man. 

He was Walt Whitman, the American transcendentalist and a poet, Aziraphale thought, who came closer to reaching heaven than any he had heard before. There was something about his poetry - maybe it was the way it ignored previous human formats while having a cadence that was almost regimental, maybe it was something deeper. Either way, it called to Aziraphale. He wished that he had the forethought to bring his first British printing of  _ Leaves of Grass _ .

“Read it,” Whitman said, placing an open notebook on the shopkeeper’s desk, “and tell me what you think.” The shopkeeper looked up.

“Hit a rough bit again, I see,” he said.

“Don’t be an ass, Paul. I need you to read it. It’s a dozen-poem sequence, ‘Live Oak with Moss’, and I want to know…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed. “Well, I want to know whether it’s fit for publication.” Paul picked up the notebook, and Aziraphale crept closer, apparently unnoticed by the two men.

“What makes you so unsure of it?” Paul said distractedly.

“I speak of love,” said Whitman.

“Well, that’s hardly a new - Oh. Oh, that is rather…”

“Yes,” said Whitman. Paul licked his lips, apparently transfixed by the words on the page. Aziraphale was beginning to get an inkling of what sort of love the poems spoke of, and, more than that, just how much of an intruder he was in this situation.

“You think it would be unwise to publish these?” Paul said at last.

“I think,” Whitman said, “that I am loath to abandon them. I thought I could write about my soul in a roundabout manner. Instead I find that they expose me more than all my other poems.”

“And you aren’t precisely known for being discreet,” Paul said. “Would it be possible to, I don’t know, reuse bits? So that it isn’t quite so…” 

“It’s not just-” Whitman stopped, the great poet struggling for words. “It’s not just the poems that expose me. It’s the whole thing, the sequence, but I can’t bring myself to… I wrote them to be together, Paul. They may be separate poems, but they are designed to be one work.”

“Well, you’re going to have to get used to the idea or be prepared to be banned or arrested,” Paul said. “Not even a complete moron could see these as platonic.” Whitman grimaced, obviously torn between the truth of Paul’s words and the pain of mutilating his own art. Aziraphale brought his fingers to his temple and closed his eyes.

“You know what,” Paul said, “I’ll buy you a drink. Things will be clearer when you aren’t so wound up.” Whitman hesitated before nodding miserably. Paul led Whitman to the door, locking it behind him - and leaving the notebook on the desk. Aziraphale sighed. Convincing someone to leave papers behind when he had been ordered to influence an election would raise no red flags in Heaven, but it still felt horribly indulgent to use a miracle to satisfy his own curiosity.

Still, he had done it, and it would be an awful shame not to take a peek now. Especially since, from how the conversation had been going, he was almost certain that the world would not see “Live Oak With Moss” as it had been created to be, at least not for a very long time. Before he could talk himself out of it, Aziraphale had strode over to the desk and opened the notebook. He read the poem sequence ravenously, not knowing whether he sought understanding or a beautiful reflection.

_What think you I take my pen in hand to record?_ _  
__The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw_ _  
_ _pass the offing to-day under full sail?_ _  
__The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the_ _  
_ _night that envelops me?_ _  
__Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city_ _  
_ _spread around me?—No;_ _  
__But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier,_ _  
_ _in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear_ _  
_ _friends,_ _  
__The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and_ _  
_ _passionately kissed him,_ _  
__While the one to depart, tightly prest the one to remain_ _  
_ _in his arms._

Aziraphale felt a heady rush, as though Her love had been made into a rod and thrust up through his body. He gasped, moaned, and slammed the notebook shut.

* * *

Aziraphale had not told Crowley that he was going to Venice.

It was silly, really. A lark. Aziraphale had recently obtained a lovely signed edition of  _ The Great Gatsby _ from an acquaintance of his, so when said acquaintance had described the notorious Cole Porter as Jay Gatsby sprung from the page… well, Aziraphale had been curious. When invitations to Porter’s parties had proven ludicrously easy to come by, he had decided there was no harm to going down to Italy for a little fun. He had specifically decided  _ not _ to tell Crowley, who would no doubt tease him terribly about his descent into vice.

Aziraphale told himself that a little angelic influence in this case would not be amiss.

The Ca' Rezzonico was certainly impressive. It had not been built yet the last time Aziraphale had been in Venice, and the outside was an elaborate rococo facade that looked directly onto the waterfront. When Aziraphale managed his way out of the gondola and into the building proper, he was stunned to find that the inside had been decorated in incredibly expensive and incredibly kitsch style. Platinum wallpaper, zebra-skin upholstery, and a band that wasn’t so much a band as an orchestra crammed into a corner so as to leave enough room for dancing.

Aziraphale didn’t know whether to be horrified or impressed. He had loved Oscar Wilde, of course, and the man had elevated flamboyance almost to an art. He had also enjoyed, or at least guiltily indulged in, Cole Porter’s popular ditties, though he tended to blush when Crowley pointed out the innuendo in “You’re the Top.” But this was beyond ostentatious, it was  _ obscene _ , right down to the pairs and trios engaging in intercourse right out in the open.

He wouldn’t be certain unless he met the man, of course, but Aziraphale couldn’t help the impression that Cole Porter had all of the flash and none of the substance of his fictional counterpart.

Aziraphale made his way over to the bar, ignoring the men and women who brushed up against him. Snatches of conversation were carried to his ears on the less than delicate wings of the orchestra -  _ “Lost his fortune in the crash, darling”  _ and  _ “Can’t help but strip down to my knickers after five glasses” _ and  _ “I hear he rents it for four thousand a month.” _

“A brandy, please,” he said when he reached the bar.

“Which one would you like?” the bartender said. “I have a lovely Armagnac from ‘95, Rémy Martin from ‘21, a Jerez from ‘25-”

“I’ll have the Armagnac,” Aziraphale said quickly. “Heated, if you don’t mind.” The flashiness of the whole affair was giving him an awful headache, and he didn’t need his head spinning on top of it.

“So,” said the bartender as he held the snifter over a candle, “enjoying my little party?” Aziraphale blinked at him.

“You’re Cole Porter,” he said. Porter grinned.

“The one and only.” He poured out the brandy and set it on the bar, holding out a hand. Aziraphale shook it, still slightly off-balance.

“My,” he said. “I mean, Arthur Fell, at your service.”

“I’ll just call you Artie, darling, if you’ll call me Cole.” Aziraphale wasn’t the sort of person-shaped entity to go by a nickname, but Porter talked so fast and so earnestly that there was nothing to do but nod along. Besides, Porter was American. He couldn’t help but be vulgar. “Now, tell me, what are you here for?”

“Why, I - I had heard you threw the most splendid parties,” Aziraphale said.

“Well, you heard correctly, darling, but I wasn’t talking about that.” Porter leaned forward like a salesman about to make a deal. “I was asking if you were looking to bag a man or a woman. Or both, of course, but you seem to have too much of the old British stuffiness to have a  _ ménage à trois _ . The point is,” he nodded over at a tall, dark-haired woman who was hanging off the arm of a man ten years her junior, “that’s my wife over there. She saw you making your way over, and she said, ‘Cole, if my instincts are wrong and that man isn’t gay, I want you to send him over to me.’ And then I said, ‘Well, darling, if he is gay, I want  _ you _ to send him over to  _ me _ .’ So, what are you here for?”

“A drink,” Aziraphale said shortly, and then strode away from the bar and left the party altogether. He felt disgusted. His experience up until then had been with sensitive humans, the kind who wrote poetry that compared their lovers to the stars. He had not expected Porter to be that sort of human, of course, not in the same way as Whitman or Wilde, but Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the man didn’t live up to even the low view his art had given him.

* * *

“Regina! Regina, my dear boy, how have you been?” Aziraphale would have continued walking, giving no thought to the speaker who was yelling down the street except to be mildly confused, if the man hadn’t yelled, “ _ Arthur! _ ” Aziraphale turned.

“Mr. Wilde?” he said, surprised. “Why, I didn’t expect to see you today.” Wilde skidded to a stop in front of him, breath huffing from both the physical exertion of running and from slight laughter.

“Nor did I, Regina, though it is serendipity itself. There is a rather clever little show I must beg you to see-”

“ _ An Ideal Husband _ ? Yes, I saw it with a friend. I thought it clever, he thought it rot. Of course, that may have been jealousy speaking.”

“What? Oh, no. My  _ latest _ play opened last Thursday. It’s called  _ The Importance of Being Earnest _ , and I do believe it is my finest work yet.” In spite of his light words, there was something heavy, almost hunted about Wilde’s tone. 

“Well, I’ll be sure to see it,” Aziraphale said. He hesitated for the briefest of moments. “My dear, are you quite alright? I only mean,” he said quickly at Wilde’s eye roll, “that you seem rather odd. Perhaps your lunch didn’t agree with you?”

“Yes, yes that is precisely it,” Wilde said unconvincingly. 

“Well, where did you dine? We must make a complaint.”

“Oh, the Savoy.” Aziraphale almost laughed, would have laughed if his feeling that things weren’t quite right wasn’t steadily growing.

“My dear, we both know that’s almost impossible,” he said gently. Wilde winced, apparently at his own inability to keep the story straight. “Now, how about you come back to my bookshop. I have a splendid bottle of Bordeaux from ‘53 that I’ve been saving for a special occasion, and you can sign some of my first editions.” Wilde hesitated, but he would have been a fool to refuse the offer, even if the ‘53 Bordeaux  _ was _ one of Aziraphale’s less impressive bottles. He had been collecting wine since the early 1200s, after all.

Aziraphale led Wilde to the back of his shop, pouring him an overly generous portion. The human sipped the wine too fast, but he seemed to relax slightly as the familiar taste lulled him into security. Aziraphale, for his part, tried to exude an aura of peace, though he knew there was little reason for it.

“Now that we’re settled, my dear,” he said when Wilde had begun his second glass, “you can start from the beginning.”

“Which one?” Wilde said. “I’ve had so many that I’m afraid I’ve quite lost track.”

“Well, first of all, you can tell me why you were calling me ‘Regina.’” Wilde laughed.

“My idea of a joke, darling. Your Christian name is Arthur, Arthur was a king, and  _ you _ , my dear, are the biggest queen to ever walk the earth.” Wilde’s face seemed to suddenly crumble in misery that was half bliss, and he gulped desperately at his wine. “Oh, I  _ wish  _ things were different, Regina. Perhaps if I had chanced to pass by you but a year ago… no, those thoughts are folly. Still, I think you would love him as much as I do.”

“Love who, Oscar?” Aziraphale said. At that moment it seemed almost cruel to use Wilde’s last name.

“Bosie,” Wilde said. “I call him Bosie. He’s a handsome little thing. At Oxford, you know.”

“No, I didn’t,” Aziraphale said. 

“His father doesn’t like me, though. He warned me away from the boy last June. And then, just yesterday, he had the nerve to leave  _ this _ at my club!” Wilde held out a calling card like a dead rat. Aziraphale took it and his heart sank. The words written by hand were bad enough - “For Oscar Wilde, posing Somdomite” - but Aziraphale’s horror was truly caught by the name printed there, clear as day.

“Oscar,” he said, trying his hardest to remain gentle and failing miserably to hide his frustration, “do you mean to tell me that you have been caught in a - a compromising situation with the  _ Marquis of Queensberry’s son _ ?”

“This whole thing has been rather taxing on my nerves, you understand,” Wilde said with a forced laugh. “Why, with Queensberry saying  _ such _ a thing in  _ such _ a public place, or writing it at least, Bosie says I ought to sue for libel.”

“Suing would be all well and good,” Aziraphale said, “if you weren’t flagrantly guilty of what the Marquis has accused you of.”

“For you, Regina, of all people to-”

“Hush. You know that I didn’t mean it like that. Do I need to remind you of where we met?” Wilde shook his head.

“You don’t,” he said, a hint of apology in his tone. “You know I’ve never doubted you.”

“I know, my dear.” Aziraphale placed at hand on Wilde’s knee,  _ willing _ him to listen. “So I beg you to heed what I say. If you initiate a libel suit, you will lose, and in doing so you will open yourself up to further prosecution. Gross indecency, at the very least, perhaps even so far as buggery. And even if you win, you will be ruined.” Wilde’s hand slipped over Aziraphale’s, guiding him up his leg until the angel’s thumb was gently stroking his inner thigh, mere breaths from the crease between hip, groin, and femur. “What you should do is leave the country for a while. Paris perhaps. Go somewhere where they revere your name and have never even heard of Queensberry. Then, when the heat has died down, you can return in triumph with a hundred things already written.”

“I can resist anything except temptation, Regina,” Wilde breathed.

“Please,  _ please _ listen to me,” Aziraphale begged, but he knew that he had already lost the man. Wilde - No, Oscar,  _ Oscar  _ was leaning forward, Oscar was capturing his lips, Oscar was letting Aziraphale bear down desperately into the kiss, as though Oscar could be cradled safe and sound in his ethereal essence if he only brought him close enough. Oscar pulled back, gasping for air, and then he was falling out of his chair and onto his knees, fumbling with the buttons of Aziraphale’s trousers.

“Wait-” Aziraphale tried to say.

“Please, I  _ need  _ this, Regina,” Oscar said. Aziraphale ran a hand through the human’s hair, and Oscar sighed as he rested his head against the angel’s thigh.

“Promise me first, Oscar,” Aziraphale said. Oscar let out a shuddering breath.

“I’ll ask the rest of the circle,” he said. “I can’t - If I  _ don’t _ sue for libel, Bosie will be so disappointed.”

“Your ‘Bosie’ can take care of himself,” Aziraphale said. “He is a Lord; he has reputation and family name to catch him if he falls. You, on the other hand, are a public figure whose fame is founded on your ability to outrage the entire Empire.”

“Better to lose your voice as the prima donna than to wait forever in the wings.”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said tenderly, and Oscar let out a choked sob, “you have never waited in the wings in your life. You can allow the scene to play out as it will without singing an aria.”

“I can’t imagine being upstaged, Regina, not of my own free will.” Oscar brought his lips close to Aziraphale’s open trousers, and the little puffs of breath felt so alive, so  _ human _ that Aziraphale could feel his eyes growing hot.

“Oscar…” he said.

“Please allow me to do this for you, Regina,” Oscar said. “It’s the least I can do after you’ve tried to help me so.” 

Aziraphale ran a hand through Oscar’s hair, drawing him closer as the man managed to free Aziraphale’s penis from his underclothes. Oscar’s lips wrapped around his length, and between the choking and flashes of teeth it was obvious that Oscar was unpracticed at this end of the equation. Still, there was suction from a warm mouth that belonged to a beautiful man, and Aziraphale couldn’t help but respond.

This was a far cry from the Platonic ideal of eros born of philia, from the sort of love Aziraphale knew Oscar thought he had with Bosie. This wasn’t love at all, not really, but it wasn’t lust either. This was pure desperation, the frantic desire for connection made physical. This was Oscar begging Aziraphale for a solution, for absolution, for  _ anything _ that would make the quagmire he found himself in somehow not exist.

Aziraphale had no answers but the ones he had already offered. He let himself spill into Oscar’s mouth and prayed that the man would take his advice.

* * *

“How is he doing?” Aziraphale asked. The harried assistant snorted as she exited the trailer. Three hellish months of shooting had caused the black star on the door to start to fade and the gold lettering that spelled out Bowie’s chosen name to peel away almost completely. Just another skin the man had shed.

“Well, he’s breathing,” she said. “Let’s just hope he manages to pull himself together before the night shoot.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Aziraphale said. She looked at him doubtfully, and he had to admit that it was warranted. Nobody could have the least bit of influence over David besides David, and it felt like an exercise in futility to even try. Still, Aziraphale could hardly abandon him.

“David?” Aziraphale said, stepping into the trailer. “David, are you alright?” A low moan came from the floor near the bed. Aziraphale made his way through the mess with a great deal more care than necessary. “Ah, there you are, my dear.”

“Goeray,” David mumbled. Even sprawled out on the floor, only semi-conscious from the cocaine comedown, he had an otherworldly sort of beauty, and Aziraphale should know. He was all gangly, fragile limbs, like bird’s bone. He’d dyed his hair again, something closer to orange than red. He had sunglasses on at the moment, but Aziraphale knew that beneath them one pupil would be larger than the other. So strange how humans reflected aspects of the less corporeal world.

“I’m afraid I’m not going anywhere,” Aziraphale said. “You’re in no state to be by yourself.”

“‘M fine.” One pale hand began feeling around the floor, and Aziraphale quickly nudged the baggie of coke out of the man’s reach. David whined. “Babe, I  _ need _ that.”

“What you need is a cup of tea.” Aziraphale guided David into a sitting position against the wall of the trailer, ignoring the man’s lolling, drug-induced attempts at a kiss. “Please tell me you have a kettle here somewhere.”

“Coffee,” David muttered. Aziraphale sighed, but he started a pot. There was no use arguing with the man when he was in this state.

“You really have to stop doing this,” Aziraphale said when the coffee had been made, sitting alongside David and allowing his sometimes-lover to slouch against him.

“‘M fine,” David said. “Got it allllll sorted out.”

“I really don’t think you have,” Aziraphale said. “David, there are so many people who care about your art, who care about  _ you _ . Why are you throwing all that away?”

“It just makes things better, darling. Makes things - Makes m’ brain work. You know.”

“I’d rather have you happy and healthy and whole than all the albums in the world,” Aziraphale said. 

“Y’ don’t even like m’ music.”

“No, but I like  _ you _ , dear. And I sometimes wonder, or - or worry that you  _ don’t _ like you.”

“I like m’self fine,” David said. “Don’t like this part, though. You trying to manage me. ‘M alright.”

“I don’t think you are, but you will be,” Aziraphale said, wrapping an arm around his lover. “I swear that you will be.”

* * *

“Oh, come  _ on _ , angel,” Crowley said. “You can hardly go to the most fashionable apartment in the most fashionable city in the world looking like  _ that _ .”

“Why not?” said Aziraphale. Crowley’s heels kicked up onto the coffee table, long legs scandalously bare.

“Because,” she said, lighting another cigarette, “if you go out like that, you’ll look like my maiden aunt, and this whole thing is because  _ you _ decided to have a crush.” Aziraphale smoothed down her long gingham skirt, pursing her lips. “Don’t do that with your face! You’re making it worse!”

“I hardly think it will make a difference, my dear,” Aziraphale said. Not for the first time, she wished that she had never mentioned her admiration of Gertrude Stein to Crowley. The demon had seemed to take the “crush,” as she called it, as permission to shower Aziraphale with temptations. Not that she was complaining, exactly. Crowley had taken on the style of the age as she always did, and Aziraphale would have been lying if she said that the short dresses and bobbed hair didn’t suit the demon quite well. 

What Aziraphale was less certain of was her own ability to pull it off. Not only had her corporation’s natural plumpness fallen out of fashion yet again, but gender, which Crowley seemed to slip in and out of like snakeskin, hung uneasily on her frame. Usually she allowed the assumption that she was male to stand unremarked upon - she moved through the so-called “man’s sphere” more naturally anyhow - but rumor had it that Gertrude Stein was the kind of woman who would appreciate a feminine sort of Effort. Not to mention that, well, Aziraphale had  _ missed _ being a woman. It had been a very long time.

“You could at least try,” Crowley said. “It’s 1928, angel, not 1728. Here. What about this?” A wadded-up clump of silk and rhinestones hit Aziraphale in the face. The angel shook out the dress, looking at it critically. Unlike Crowley’s knee-length, almost androgynous black-and-glass-beads number, the dress Aziraphale had been thrown was a subtly sparkling cream color that cinched lightly at the waist and would come down almost to mid-calf. It was certainly closer to what she had worn the last time she had presented as a woman.

“Perhaps,” she conceded, knowing that Crowley wouldn’t shut up if she didn’t at least try it out. What she really didn’t understand was why the demon always had to be _so_ _painfully_ modern. “But I really don’t think-”

“Then don’t,” Crowley said. “Let me do the thinking, angel.”

“My dear, it would  _ hardly _ be a good idea for an angel to take advice of this sort from a demon.” Nevertheless, Aziraphale began to strip off her skirt and blouse. Crowley stared unabashedly, and though Aziraphale couldn’t see what sort of expression the demon was hiding behind her dark glasses, she felt her cheeks growing hot in an uncomfortably human way.

“On the contrary,” Crowley said half-heartedly after almost too long of a pause, “a demon is precisely the sort of creature you should be listening to if you want to seduce your girl.”

“Firstly, I do  _ not _ want to seduce her. I simply wish to express my admiration for her work and perhaps have a pleasant conversation. Secondly,” Aziraphale said louder, trying to drown out Crowley’s muttered ‘ _ pleasant conversation my arse _ ’, “secondly, even if I did wish to know her, well,  _ biblically _ , it wouldn’t work out. She has a lover.”

“Oh, we both know that’s never stopped anyone,” Crowley snorted. “Least of all you, angel- Don’t give me that look! You know it’s true.”

“There is a difference,” Aziraphale said stiffly, “between entering a relationship with someone whose marriage is… incompatible with their tastes in general and destroying a healthy relationship by seduction.” Crowley shrugged.

“It’s the human’s decision,” she said. “That’s the lovely thing about free will -  _ you  _ make or break the thing, not some bullshit rules that you were never properly taught.”

“Well, forgive me for not wanting to facilitate evil,” Aziraphale said.

“As far as I’m concerned, at that point it can hardly be called facilitating. If you find a human that’s willing to cheat with you, chances are they’ll be willing to cheat with another human.”

“Maybe with me,” Aziraphale conceded, “but you do have to admit that you rather  _ suggest _ things, my dear. It’s hardly sporting.”

“Sssporting?” Crowley said, half hissing and half purring. Aziraphale shivered and gave Crowley a glare, which she met with a sinful grin. She  _ knew _ she was temptation.

“Oh,  _ you know _ . You do, well,  _ that _ , and the humans hardly stand a chance. They don’t exactly expect miracles.”

“What makes you think that was a miracle?” Crowley said. Aziraphale sputtered, face aflame, and with that Crowley swung her legs around in a wide, thigh-baring arch and got to her feet. “Now come along, angel. We’d hardly want to be late to one of Gertrude Stein’s  _ infamous _ soirées.”

Aziraphale was relieved to find that, despite Crowley’s less-than-subtle implications, the gathering was no more scandalous than an evening at one of her clubs. Skewing more in the female direction, certainly, but it was clear that everyone in the room was there in an understanding. There may be canoodling in certain dark corners, but for the most part it would be pleasant conversation of the sort that would not even need to be denied in other company. Despite the secrecy inherent in the entire situation, there was a certain amount of comfort and safety to be found there - not only because it was Paris, where homosexuality was legal as it was not in Britain, but because they were among friends, or at least among people who  _ knew _ them.

Crowley disappeared from her side almost as soon as they had arrived. It was for the best, really, since Aziraphale had no desire to be stuck at the same table as Crowley during one of her seductions. Aziraphale took a glass of champagne and started searching for Gertrude Stein, or, if she could not find her, another of the literary set that converged around this particular Paris flat. Stein was, thankfully, easy to find, locked in conversation with Hemingway and an unfamiliar woman in a bespoke suit. Aziraphale smoothed down her dress, wishing once again that she could have had the comfort of long skirts and thick petticoats.

“...at the moment we are most concerned with collecting true experiences with the psychic forces,” the woman in the suit was saying, “but we do have several well-respected men, some from the Zoological Society, who are poised to conduct scientific experiments proving the existence of extra-normal or supernatural abilities and entities.”

“Codswallop,” Gertrude Stein said. “You’re as unbalanced as Doyle, and he at least has his wife kicking the bucket as an excuse.”

“Isn’t it more ridiculous to dismiss hundreds of eyewitness accounts?” the other woman said. “To dismiss all the combined knowledge of faith and science-”

“Faith is a balm for fools who can’t bear to look at the world as it is,” Stein said. Hemingway was nodding in agreement, and Aziraphale saw her chance to enter the conversation.

“On the contrary,” she said, “every society and culture in human history has had some connection to the spiritual. So, in a way, you could say that faith is the truest condition of the world.” The woman in the suit looked at her, half shocked and half apprising. “Angela Fell, at your service.”

“Radclyffe Hall,” the woman said, shaking her hand. Aziraphale shivered as Hall’s eyes raked over her. “But you can call me John if you wish.” 

“Charmed,” Aziraphale said. 

“I know a number of scientists who are seeking to do studies on inversion,” Hall said, her eyes still unwaveringly on Aziraphale’s. “Congenital inversion, I mean. They have plenty of men, but they have been looking for more women. I myself went in just a week ago. If I am not mistaken, you are in invert as well.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that means,” Aziraphale admitted. There was a touch of disappointment on Hall’s face, as though she had expected Aziraphale to have a brain that travelled the same pathways as hers.

“Congenital inversion,” Hall said with no little condescension, “is the term used when talking about a truly modern, scientific understanding of homosexuality. Sexologists have recently come to understand that homosexuality is not simply an act carried out by perverted but otherwise normal individuals, but rather a state of the mind. Male inverts are inclined towards feminine pursuits, including the pursuit of men; likewise, female inverts such as myself are mentally masculine.” 

“That’s all very well and good for you,” Aziraphale said, “but  _ I  _ don’t feel particularly masculine at the moment.” 

“Which is exactly why you ought to participate in the studies!” Hall said. “If you help them, they will be able to deepen their understanding of sexuality, of  _ humanity _ , beyond what they currently know.” Aziraphale almost laughed.

“I thought you were a poet and author, my dear,” she said to cover up the real reason for her mirth.

“Oh, art answers science and science answers art,” Hall said airily. “Just as you, darling, answer the question of beauty and grace.”

“Do you try to perform experiments on all your seductions?” Aziraphale said.

“Only the most intriguing,” Hall said.

Aziraphale was unangelically smug when she reunited with Crowley, love bites on full display on her neck. Crowley’s mouth, surrounded by the smudge of multiple colors of lipstick, dropped open before shifting into a wicked grin.

“Had your fun with Stein, then?” she said.

“No,” said Aziraphale, “with a different woman. You would have liked her, I think.”

* * *

Aziraphale ignored the cabby’s suspicious glance as he paid, looking up nervously at the Hôtel d'Alsace. He couldn’t imagine anything further removed from the glitz and luxury of the Hundred Guineas Club or the Savoy. The brickwork was crumbling, and the once-handsome sculpted horses and cherubs had been worn faceless. Aziraphale patted his bag and reminded himself of what he was here to do, then he pasted on a jaunty smile and walked up the steps to the foyer.

“Oscar?” he said, rapping on the door to Room 16. “Oscar, are you there?” The door opened to reveal an almost unrecognizable figure. Oscar Wilde was thin, pale, his hair shot through with gray that made him look far older than his forty-five years. Instead of his meticulously dandyish attire, he wore a dressing gown over shirtsleeves. Someone who had known the playwright in his glory days would have been hard-pressed to recognize him now. Still, when he saw Aziraphale standing in the doorway, a tired grin brought a hint of life back into his face.

“Regina?” he said. “Is it really you, old boy?” Aziraphale forced himself to nod.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said. “Reggie gave me your address. May I come in?”

“Of course, of course.” Oscar bustled him in, and Aziraphale got his first good look at the room. “I’m afraid I don’t have much, but would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale said. “I’m very glad to see you, Oscar, though I had hoped to do it somewhere a bit less, well,  _ yellow _ .”

“I know, it’s simply dreadful. I told Robbie that the wallpaper and I were fighting a duel  _ à l'outrance _ . One of us has got to go.” Oscar poured out two cups of tea, hands trembling with the weight of the teapot. He took a small glass bottle from the pocket of his dressing gown, adding a generous portion from it to one of the teacups before secreting it away again. “The lamp, however, is rather lovely. Perhaps we can elope.” He settled back in the armchair, still not quite meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Now, why did you want to see me, Regina?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say no to you signing my copies of  _ An Ideal Husband _ and  _ Earnest _ ,” Aziraphale said, “but, really, I simply wanted to see you. See how you - how you were getting on.”

“Oh, swimmingly, swimmingly,” Oscar said, taking a large gulp of the spiked tea. “Though why you would want something signed by me… Well, it wouldn’t exactly  _ sell _ .”

“Don’t be silly,” Aziraphale said. “One day, this whole mess will be a blip, and you’ll be as loved and respected as ever. Besides, I don’t want them to sell.” Oscar fiddled with his saucer.

“You’re too kind,” he said softly. “And rather too optimistic, as well.” He squirmed in his seat. “I am dying, Regina.” 

“I know.” Aziraphale searched for something to say. “You outlived the nineteenth century, at least. You outlived Queensberry.” Oscar gave him a small, sad grin.

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he said. “Please don’t think I’m bitter, Regina. Please don’t think I regret it. Regret is - Well, it’s a bit of a lie, isn’t it? To regret is to deny that we were happy once, to deny that we knew our own souls.”

“Even you can’t deny that the libel suit was a bit stupid.” Oscar rolled his eyes.

“Please, darling, I’m  _ trying _ to be philosophical about this. There is no need to say that you told me so.”

“I know,” Aziraphale said with what he knew was too much gravity for comfort. “I’m sorry.”

“Just try to restrain yourself,” Oscar grumbled. He shifted again. “What I meant was - I don’t regret having lived for pleasure. It’s a rotten world, Regina, that punishes a man for his virtues as well as his vices.”

“Don’t say that, Oscar.”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it? They could have brought devastation down upon me for engaging the services of prostitutes, and that I might have been able to bear as my just due, but instead - instead they came after me for loving him.” Aziraphale’s heart ached as he remembered the way Crowley had pointed out the men at the Zanzibar. He wondered what had ever become of them. “You are a believer, are you not? A true one?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, though at the moment the word felt a little like a lie.

“I had thought, perhaps, if I converted… But I have never been like you, Regina. I can’t help but feel as though God must have made a terrible mistake somewhere. Either in building Bosie or in building me. It’s as if - It’s as if we can’t exist in the same space, but we can’t exist without each other. I feel that half my heart, half my  _ soul _ is missing, and I can’t imagine a way of getting it back.”

“I’m so terribly sorry,” Aziraphale said helplessly.. “It was wrong, Oscar, what they did to you.” He hesitated. “My dear, I think I would rather like to kiss you.”

“I think I’d like that,” Oscar said.

(Nine months later, Aziraphale received a telegram and rushed to Paris, to his friend’s side. When he returned to the bookshop two weeks later, exhausted and heavy with mourning, he put his full set of first editions signed by Wilde in a place of honor behind the front desk.

Crowley took one look at them and came back with almost enough alcohol to dull the pain.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Info on the Whitman poem sequence that he split up to disguise the gay content can be found [here](whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/anc.00154.html). Quite a bit of Wilde's dialogue in the last scene is paraphrased from De Profundis, which can be found [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/921/921-h/921-h.htm). If you want more info on just how tangled and messed up the Oscar Wilde thing was, I got all my trial info for him from [here](web.archive.org/web/20101223223338/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/wilde/wilde.htm).


	5. a time to die

_And I, I can remember_ _  
_ _Standing by the wall_ __  
_And the guns shot above our heads_  
_And we kissed as though nothing could fall_

_\- David Bowie and Brian Eno, “Heroes”_

It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was close enough.

It started when Aziraphale was recalled to heaven. Crowley skulked around the bookshop, terrifying the plants that had found their way in and causing crumpled pages to stand in attention. Aziraphale came back hours later, and for a moment Crowley could feel relieved. The angel seemed unharmed, physically at least, if a little pale and shaky.

Then Aziraphale revealed Heaven’s plans.

The world may not have ended, but Heaven still wanted their war with Hell, and Hell was more than happy to oblige. That amount of ethereal and demonic power breaking against each other - Well, it would make the atomic bomb look like a water gun. It would make the moments of searing pain Crowley and Aziraphale sometimes felt when their auras got out of control seem like absolute bliss. And even if, by some miracle, the world wasn’t rendered desolate by the clashing of spiritual forces, there was no possible way that Crowley and Aziraphale would be there to enjoy the Earth and the clever little humans on it.

Aziraphale had been given a decision: join the fight or be counted as the enemy. The only reason he had come back to the bookshop at all was because he’d lied and said he’d think about it.

“If you don’t join with Heaven, they’re going to come after you, angel,” Crowley said. “And that’s not even getting into what Hell’s planning on doing. I have a feeling that my side will be using this as an opportunity to get rid of an annoyance once and for all.”

“Not your side,” Aziraphale said. “Our side. We’ll do _something_.”

“Something? What do you mean ‘something’? What the fuck could we possibly do?” Crowley began to pace, gesturing wildly. “Angel, it’s done! It’s over! We could run, but they _want_ us dead now, there’s nowhere we could even _think_ about hiding. We could fight, but we’re only an angel and a demon, there’s no way we could stand against the combined forces of Heaven and Hell.”

“I could call on the Metatron-”

“God isn’t listening to you, and even if She was, She obviously condones this - this _bullshit_ . We! Are! _Fucked_!” Crowley flopped down into a chair, coiling himself up into a ball as though that could save him. “You should go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You have a chance. _Heaven’s_ giving you a chance. You should take it.”

“Crowley, I’ve made my decision.” Crowley stared up at him, and Aziraphale could tell that the demon’s eyes were wide and inhuman behind his sunglasses. “I won’t go back to them, not now.”

“Why not?”

“They gave Hell the holy water they needed to execute you. For all their talk of fraternizing, they seemed rather keen when it got them what they wanted. Besides, I won’t leave you to be killed by Hell or by the war.”

“We don’t stand a chance against them, angel. Sacrificing yourself like some stupid martyr won’t change anything.” Aziraphale bit his lip, and Crowley couldn’t help but stare. Six millenia on Earth and an uncountable time in Heaven and Hell all seemed to have been leading him - leading _them_ to this moment.

“We can still fight,” Aziraphale said. He took a step forward, and Crowley’s breath caught in his throat, the heart he didn’t technically need beating against the inside of his chest. “We can still fight them _together_.”

The kiss wasn’t born out of some kind of vulgar desire. It wasn’t hot and open-mouthed and desperate, it wasn’t full of licks and bites and the almost violent need for sexual fulfillment. It wasn’t, in short, anything like what Crowley had wanted Aziraphale to do to him ever since Eden. Instead, Aziraphale’s kiss was like Amaretto, intoxicating and almost too sweet to bear. Crowley felt like the angel’s divine grace was consuming him from the inside out, but the last thing he wanted was to pour sand on the flames.

“Aziraphale-” Crowley cut himself off with a gasp, and Aziraphale responded by deepening the kiss. He leaned gently into Crowley, guiding the demon backwards until his calves hit the sofa and his legs promptly gave out, collapsing him onto the cushions. “Aziraphale, please…”

“Going too fast?” Aziraphale said, pulling back. His pupils were blown wide, bright blue eyes glowing slightly, and Crowley could see the concern there, the nervousness.

“Not - Not too fast,” he managed. “Just… slow down a wee bit, yeah?” Aziraphale gave him a decidedly unangelic grin.

“Oh, I can do _slow_ ,” he said. Crowley groaned, settling back in preparation for the torture as fingers teased at his lapel, only to open his eyes when he heard Aziraphale snort. “Do you seriously miracle all your clothes?” Crowley glared.

“It’s efficient!” he whined, and then, just for revenge, he snapped his fingers and instantly appeared naked beneath Aziraphale. The angel froze, mouth hanging open comedically, and Crowley squirmed smugly against the cushions.

“My darling…” The soft pads of Aziraphale’s fingers traced the ridges of his ribcage with reverence, moving upwards to circle Crowley’s nipple with one manicured thumbnail. The leg between Crowley’s legs found a rhythm, bringing the angel up and down so that he was rubbing along Crowley’s length and rutting against the demon’s leg in turn. One particularly delicious revolution made Crowley hiss.

“Faster,” he gasped. “Fuck’s sake, go faster.” Aziraphale responded by kissing him, and _there_ it was, that biting, burning passion that Crowley had known Aziraphale possessed somewhere in his corporation. 

The angel’s wings burst open, enveloping both of them in blinding white, and Crowley’s followed his, mingling in his inky black. Aziraphale cried out, half in demon-born pain and half in ecstasy, as Crowley matched him thrust for thrust, crashing their corporations together as though he could fuse their hips through sheer force of will. Aziraphale surged forward, kissing the demon more deeply than he’d thought possible, and then

and then

and then they ceased to be Crowley and Aziraphale or Aziraphale and Crowley and

and then _they_ became _Them_.


	6. one, consubstantial

_ O Urizen! Creator of men! mistaken Demon of heaven: _ _   
_ _ Thy joys are tears! thy labour vain, to form men in thine image. _ _   
_ _ How can one joy absorb another? are not different joys _ _   
_ __ Holy, eternal, infinite! and each joy is a Love.

_ \- William Blake, “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” _

They were  _ Them. _

The first sensation was completion, an ecstasy greater than any orgasm, a deep ache as though They were stretching a muscle for the first time in ages. Wings unfurled, arms and legs flexed, eyes closed tighter against the tears of joy that threatened Them.

_ You’re here _ , part of Them said.

_ You’re _ _ here, _ said another part,  _ I thought I’d lost you forever. _

_ Never _ , the first part said. Their mouths smiled and laughed in jubilation. For an everlasting moment it seemed as though nothing could upset the sunshine of Their soul, but then a shadow broke through. Their eyes opened, tracking the shadow, seeing the hosts and armies preparing against Them. They blinked, reorienting Themselves in the spiritual world.

They thought  _ We are in No Man’s Land  _ and 

They thought  _ We are in the undiscovered country _ and

They thought  _ I always preferred the funny ones _ and  _ I always disagreed with you _ and

_ Why should I fear in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me? _

_ Because, if you haven’t noticed _ , part of Them said,  _ those foes include the full might of Heaven and Hell _ .

_ Oh, my love, _ another part said,  _ I fear no evil so long as you are with me. _ Joy filled Them, joy beyond reason, joy beyond the fear that still licked at their dozens of heels.

Love. Part of Them that was not supposed to say love and part of Them was supposed to love all but the other half of Themselves, but still the Love was there, complete, total, filling and feeding Them. They felt, dimly, the way that Heaven and Hell both paused in their preparations, disquieted by feelings too great for those half-made beings to even conceptualize.

_ We have to do something _ .

_ I know _ . There was sorrow there, sorrow from the part of Them that didn’t want to break from everything They’d ever been. It existed even now, even at the end of all things.  _ If we don’t fight, nothing will survive. Not Earth, not Heaven, not even Hell. _

_ Not even us, _ said the part of them that was selfish, so selfish.  _ Who cares about the rest? _

_ She does _ .

_ No, She doesn’t _ . Sorrow again, sharper this time, but it was soon soothed by the part of Them that had been disappointed by God’s supposed Plan too often.

_ I suppose you’re right. _ And there was the stiff upper lip perfected through the millenia, the front that allowed Them to keep from breaking completely as wars raged and empires fell and the Earth spun on with no regard for any sort of angelic miracle or demonic intervention or Divine Plan whatsoever. They had watched atrocity upon atrocity; They had fought for and against Heaven and Hell. This would be nothing more or less than business as usual. 

They opened Their dozens of wings, drew Themselves up to Their full height in both the spiritual and physical realm, and prepared Themselves for one final battle.

The forces of Hell noticed Them first, having been fully prepared to kill both Their demonic and angelic part in the new war. The demons surged from Hell, and for a moment it seemed as though They would be overwhelmed on the first rush. But the weapons the demons wielded were only half effective, concentrated as they were on only half of the Beast that towered above them.

_ They’ll break into the physical world if we don’t stop them _ . With a flurry of wind and heat, They gathered Their power, lashing out at the occult forces with whips of light and swords of fire. In one blow, half of Hell’s forces lay on the battlefield, screaming, drowning in their own black blood. The other half had been instantly turned to dust.

The screams of the dying alerted Heaven at last. They turned as They heard familiar voices shouting orders. This bit would be more difficult, if only because half of Them was half uncertain, wondering if there was any chance of forgiveness.

_ Of us or of them, angel? _

_ Of them, of course. I’m not stupid. _

_ You think they’re the ones who require forgiveness?  _ This wasn’t regret, not exactly, not unless a lack of hypocrisy can be called regret. This was certainty, certainty that Their course was both right and wrong, certainty that there was no such thing as a Good War even if it could be called a Just War.

_ I think, _ They said,  _ that we may be forgiven. _ There was no more time for uncertainty. Heaven attacked, falling upon Them like shooting stars and crashing against Them like waves on the shore. They gathered Themselves for a final push, for the blow that would  _ end _ it, but before They could strike there was a burst of light bright enough to blind even Them.

HOW DARE YOU?

They recognized the voice immediately, though They had never heard Her so angry before.

HOW DARE YOU SEEK TO DESTROY MY CREATIONS?

Some parts of Them wanted to cower. The parts that feared Her above all others. The parts that still loved Her, despite everything. But other parts of Them remembered the Flood and the Plagues, remembered Sodom and sodomy, remembered the Crusades and the missionaries and all the other atrocities done in Her name and by Her hand. They remembered, and They knew there was only one thing They could say to Her.

“You’re one to talk,” They said. 

She stepped out of the light, as immense and terrible compared to Them as They were compared to Heaven and Hell. The angels immediately fell to the ground, prostrating themselves before Her, and even the few remaining demons seemed overwhelmed. Somehow They managed to keep from doing the same.

YOU DARE QUESTION ME? YOU, WHO HAVE SOUGHT TO DESTROY MY PLAN?

“Plan?” They said. Every bit of anger and doubt, every unanswered question and half-examined lie seemed to crowd Their throat, words tripping and choking Them in their haste to get out. “What Plan? A war between Heaven and Hell would destroy  _ everything _ . The death would outstrip World War II and the Bubonic Plague combined. And the injuries, the sickness,  _ everything _ -”

YOU THINK YOU CAN UNDERSTAND YOUR GOD’S INEFFABLE PLAN?

“It’s too much,” They said. She glared at Them, but it was getting easier all the time to defy Her. “I don’t know what the… whatever You think You’re playing at, but it’s too much. You were about to let Heaven and Hell destroy the Earth without so much as a whisper, but the moment we fight back-”

YOU THINK YOU KNOW MY WAYS? I HAD A PLAN, AND YOU TWO DESTROYED IT.

_ We what? _ But the other part of Them was already realizing what was happening.

_ Oh, that is brilliant. That is just downright hilarious. _ Their mouths let out a laugh of pure glee.

“Not us. Well, us too, but not  _ just _ us.  _ Me _ .” They laughed harder, doubling over, limbs spidering over the boundless grounds of Heaven and Hell. “You never meant for me to exist.”

YOU ARE SEPARATE BEINGS. HALVES, BUT YOU DO NOT CREATE A WHOLE.

“No, you’re wrong. I’m  _ complete _ . I’m one being now, just made of two others combined.” They looked up at Her, all angelic knowledge and demonic mischief. “That’s why Nicaea was such a mess. You didn’t know if You could face what You had made. Either we’re  _ us _ , we’re  _ me _ , consubstantial with You and with each other, or-”

YOU WERE MEANT TO JOIN WITH THOSE WHOM YOU WERE MEANT TO JOIN.

“But You buggered it up, didn’t You? Your Plan took too long. Heaven became too much like Heaven, Hell became too much like Hell, and we - well, me, I changed. I  _ grew _ . That wasn’t in Your Plan.”

I HAD IT ALL PLANNED OUT. THE ANGEL AZIRAPHALE WOULD MEET HASTUR THROUGH HIS WORK AND SEE HOW HE FULFILLED HIM. THE DEMON CRAWLY-

“ _ Crowley _ .”

-WOULD MEET GABRIEL AND LEARN THE SAME. THOSE TWO COMPLETED BEINGS WOULD THEN BE MY EMISSARIES TO HEAVEN AND HELL. THEY WOULD SHOW THE REST OF MY CREATIONS THE WAY.

There was only one consensus that all parts of Them could reach.

“Ew,” They said. “That… would never have worked.”

YOU WERE CREATED TO BE HALVES OF A WHOLE.

“Well, we’ve chosen our whole for ourselves.”

THAT IS NOT FOR YOU TO SAY.

“It’s a little too late for that now.”

YOU WILL ALWAYS BE BROKEN. YOU WILL NEVER BE WHOLE IF YOU DO NOT EMBRACE MY PLAN FOR YOU. God looked at Them with so much love and pity that it was impossible not to believe that She was in earnest. REVERSE THIS COURSE. SEPARATE FROM EACH OTHER AND BECOME THE BEINGS YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE.

They considered her words. It was true, now that They had grown used to being Them, that there was still something missing, some infant sense of complete harmony with Themselves. They were still halves making a whole, and They could faintly remember a time when there was no such thing as a half at all. They still ached for it a little, but it wasn’t the burning longing of before. Instead, it was the ache you feel when you return to a childhood home to find the curtains changed or the walls repainted or the yard suddenly smaller than in your memories. They would always ache, but They would also remember.

They remembered  _ poetry  _ and

_ equations _ and

_ stardust _ and

_ dinosaurs _ and

_ juries  _ and

_ mistakes _ and

_ beauty  _ and

and 

and 

“And I think,” They said, “that there’s no fate anymore, not really. It’s gotten away from You. It’s  _ outgrown _ you. Whatever we were when You split us in half, we aren’t those halves anymore. We’re so different now from what we were that we couldn’t possibly fit back into Your Plan.”

MY PLAN IS INEVITABLE.

“No. I mean, it evidently isn’t. Face it, no matter what You started out with, there’s no mystical design. There’s no sort of cosmic completion at the end of this, and quite frankly I wouldn’t want there to be.  _ We _ wouldn’t want there to be. So either go off and bother someone else, or we will be forced to do something about it.”

WHAT CAN YOU DO AGAINST ME? I AM THE ALL-POWERFUL, EVER-LIVING GOD. I WAS THERE BEFORE THE BEGINNING, AND I WILL BE THERE AFTER EVEN YOU AND YOUR KIND HAVE FADED AWAY. I WILL RAISE UP THE DEMONS YOU SLAYED AND FIND BETTER CREATIONS WHO WILL LISTEN TO MY PLAN.

“You can try that if you like,” They said. “I doubt it’ll work. That’s the bugger about free will, You know. People are always changing their minds.”

YOU ARE UNCHANGING.

“No,  _ You _ are unchanging. We, thankfully, are a bit more flexible.” 

They saw God’s decision almost as soon as She made it. Lightning was arching from Her hands, aiming at Their heart, about to cleave Them in two once more. Both halves - that is, every cell of Their body and soul - surged forward, trying to protect the other half,  _ Their _ other half. For a crystalline moment They fused completely, Body and Heart and Mind and Soul, and They  _ knew _ what They could have been Before the Beginning.

They caught the lightning bolt, holding it to Them, allowing it to burn Them where They stood. Then They let it go, throwing waves of pure Godly energy from every pore. The angels and demons disintegrated instantly, leaving behind only whispers of screams. They twisted, pulled, readjusted, and then took the lightning and turned it into a concentrated beam of pure spiritual destruction. 

God screamed. The beam of lightning burned through Her like heated diamond through cold steel. It sunk in slowly, concentrating on each cell individually until it burst open like a blood-filled flower. Then the devastation spread outwards, enveloping God’s limbs, slowly reducing Her into the spirit of a spirit, a being that might as well not have existed it was so weak. 

_ what have you done? _

The whisper was hardly a whisper. The god was no longer a god. Satisfied with Their work, They felt along the seam that connected Them, pulling at the thread until They became two separate halves once again.

The first thing Aziraphale felt was the bony body of Crowley trembling beneath him. He opened to see the demon’s still closed, a look of pain on his face.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said carefully. “Crowley, my dear, are you alright?”

“Did we-” Crowley choked. “Did we just kill God?”

“I don’t think so,” Aziraphale said. “Just - Just diminished Her somewhat.” Crowley let out a sigh that could have been resignation or relief. “We did kill Hell, though. And Heaven.”

“Fuck,” said Crowley. “I was supposed to be in love with  _ Gabriel _ .” Aziraphale laughed and kissed his demon.

“I’m glad you aren’t,” he said. Crowley opened his eyes and laughed, this time almost certainly with relief.

“We won,” he said. “All the forces of Heaven and Hell, and an angel and a demon won.”

“More than an angel and a demon,” Aziraphale said. “So much more than that. More than even God could ever plan for.”


	7. a time to be born

_ God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give them endless duration. After a life of love, an eternity of love is, in fact, an augmentation; but to increase in intensity the ineffable felicity which love bestows on the soul, even in this world, is impossible, even to God. God is the plenitude of heaven; love is the plenitude of man. _

_ \- Victor Hugo,  _ _ Les Misérables _

An angel and a demon were dining at The Cave of the Golden Calf.

That wasn’t its name these days, of course. Madame Strindberg’s fine institution had lasted only two years, but it still cast a long shadow. Both the angel and the demon could remember stealing into the unassuming underground bar that opened like a geode, revealing the elite of London’s avant-garde and the irrepressible decadents. For one, there had been little appeal beyond manicured hands and plush lips. For the other, the attraction of the artists had soon been outweighed by the club’s most popular toast - “Vive Wilde!”

After the closure of its greatest tenant, others had tried to take its place. A parade of pubs and restaurants, each more disreputable than the last. A post office. The Living Room W1 was only the latest in a long line, and both the angel and the demon could see the signs of its time fading away.

“Any hint of God?” Crowley said, sipping at his Chardonnay.

“Surely you would know as well as I, my dear,” said Aziraphale. Crowley shrugged, and Aziraphale squeezed his love’s hand comfortingly. “If She regains Her strength-”

“When,” Crowley said with absolute certainty.

“When,” Aziraphale conceded. “But we will be ready for Her. I think we’ve established quite conclusively that She cannot destroy us when we are together.”

“I suppose,” Crowley said, only sounding half convinced. Aziraphale sighed, knowing in his heart that there was nothing he could say to make Crowley feel truly secure, not all at once. All he could do was change what he could and let time do the rest.

Suddenly Aziraphale smiled. There was one thing he knew he could do immediately. With a snap of his fingers, the bored pianist playing an uninspired “Clair de Lune” was replaced by a cabaret singer and her backing band. Crowley’s eyes flicked toward Aziraphale questioningly as the band began to play a song he remembered well.

_ Non, rien de rien _ _   
_ _ Non, je ne regrette rien _ _   
_ _ Ni le bien qu'on me fait _ _   
_ _ Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égale _

“You truly don’t, do you?” he murmured.

“Not a moment of it,” said Aziraphale.

“And our past lovers? We’ve wasted so much time.”

“On the contrary, I believe that love is never wasted,” Aziraphale said.

“Love?” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, we both loved them. I just wish it hadn’t taken the threat of our imminant destruction for you to finally fuck me.”

“Perhaps the wait was necessary,” Aziraphale mused philosophically. “In order to change Her Plan, I mean.”

“I don’t give a damn about the stupid Plan,” Crowley said. “I just-” Aziraphale cut him off with a kiss. When he pulled away, the demon was blushing.

“I know,” he said. “I feel the same way, I think, but there’s no use regretting. After all, we have all the time in the world.” Crowley nodded reluctantly and gulped down the rest of his wine. The song had changed to something slower, sweeter, and he held out a hand to his lover.

“Shall we dance, angel?” the demon said, the words coming out more stilted than suave. 

“Of course, my dear,” said the angel. They stood and began to sway to the music, close in a different but no less perfect way.

_ Des nuits d'amour a plus finir _ _   
_ _ Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place _ _   
_ _ Des enuis des chagrins, s'effacent _ _   
_ _ Heureux, heureux a en mourir. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Quand il me prend dans ses bras _ _   
_ _ Il me parle tout bas _ _   
_ __ Je vois la vie en rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More info on The Cave of the Golden Calf, which was an actual place, can be found [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cave_of_the_Golden_Calf). Translations of the two Edith Piaf songs can be found [here ("Non Je Ne Regrette Rien")](https://www.frenchlyricstranslations.com/non-je-ne-regrette-rien-edith-piaf-french-lyrics-and-english-translation/) and [here ("La Vie en Rose")](https://www.frenchlyricstranslations.com/la-vie-en-rose-edith-piaf-french-lyrics-and-english-translation/).


End file.
